But let´s be honest. None of them proved to be the miracle solution which would make my students learn all the verbs.

In fact, after all those years of teaching, I have come to a conclusion that there is just one way to ensure that students learn something. They have to LEARN it. I, as a teacher, can motivate, explain and navigate, but only the students can learn.

And that is why I decided to write this post. Here, I would like to share with you a simple vocabulary trainer which will help your students learn the past tense of 50 irregular verbs in English. If they learn these fifty (in fact there are 52, but fifty sounds so much better 🙂 ) they will understand 87% of all occurrences of all irregular verbs in English.

Needs analysis

To know the irregular verbs, students need to learn the following. They need to memorize the meaning of the verb, the infinitive and the past tense of each verb. The easiest and quickest known way to do this are word lists and flashcards. If you doubt my words, have a look at anything written by Paul Nation.

However, as we live in the twenty-first century, paper is not something that our student would be fond of. Especially teenagers seem to be allergic to it. But they never fail to have their mobile on them. Thus, if we could get into their mobiles, they might start learning.

Thinking along these lines I decided to make a mobile app that would work a bit like the flashcards, and which would provide the meaning, the infinitive and the past tense of the verb. Moreover, if the students finish the game, they will meet each verb between six and eighteen times which should ensure they remember them.

Irregular Verbs – Invitation to collaborate

As you can see, the application is perfect for Czech students but not of much use for anyone else. That is why I would like to ask you for help. Could you translate the past tense of the 50 irregular verbs and send them to me? If you do, I will publish the app place a link here and your students will be able to use this app too.

The app will be free and there will be a web version too.
You can download the word file here.